Coastal Payment Systems Announces Payment Optimization Service

Today, more than ever, businesses and government entities prefer to use a corporate, business or purchasing card to pay make purchases or pay for business services.  Additionally, more businesses issue commercial cards to their employees as a way to track expenses.  This trend can increase merchants’ card acceptance costs.

Payment Optimization system enables merchants of all types, the ability to save on the cost of commercial card acceptance by ensuring business, corporate, and purchasing cards clear at the lowest-cost interchange qualification categories for commercial card types.  With Payment Optimization merchants will experience:

• Automatic savings on interchange costs (pass-through costs from the card associations)

• The service is compatible with most point-of-sale devices, software or Internet solutions.

• No upfront costs or obligation

• Cancel the service at any time

How the Service Works:

• Proprietary systems and algorithms optimizes monthly Level 2 and 3 interchange savings.

• A data enrichment program for Level 2 and Level 3 transaction clearing populates all the required data fields that were missed by the merchant or not available through the merchant’s payment acceptance solution.

• We share a portion of the interchange savings for the transactions on which our system has intervened on your behalf with you.

• All you need is a merchant account through CPS to begin saving on commercial card costs.

Trends

Commercial Card use has increased as more companies benefit from:

• Automating payments (no more costly checks to process).

• Improving security over supplier payments.

• More control over expenses (travel, purchases, fleet/fuel).

• Flexibility and setting spending limits.

• Rewards and perks associated with card usage.

Merchant Impact

• Increase in percentage of sales using commercial cards

• Higher acceptance cost cuts into your bottom line. (Commercial card Level 1 interchange rates are high and can exceed 3%.)

• Most merchant solutions are not able to pass the data elements required for Level 2 and Level 3 interchange rates.

Types of Commercial Cards:

• Business cards are used by small businesses

• Corporate cards are used for business travel

• Purchasing cards can capture invoice details

• Government cards are used for spending (GSA)

• Fleet cards capture fuel and other fleet data

Commercial Card Level 1-2-3 Data Points 

Level 1 is basic card data, similar to consumer cards (limited purchase data) – highest interchange cost.

Level 2 rates apply when the customer code and tax amount are provided – mid-level interchange cost.

Level 3 rates apply when invoice-like data is provided as indicated in the chart below – lowest interchange cost.

Downgrade transactions are not eligible for Level 2 or 3 optimization.  Downgrades can occur for several reasons; i.e., no address verification performed on card not present transactions, authorization and settlement amounts not matching, or late settlement for merchant type, to name a few.

About Coastal Payment Systems

Coastal Payment Systems partners with small business to protect profits and growth through payments, employee management and capital funding.

Providing customized solutions for business from selecting systems to installation and implementation and continued exceptional service, our mission is to ensure every client's success and profitability first and foremost.

Coastal Payment Systems offers a broad range of electronic payment acceptance solutions to businesses and public entities. CPS provides services to merchants of all types and industries. CPS also offers a zero % cost processing option, where the cost for card acceptance is transferred to the cardholder. CPS provides transparent pricing, next-day funding, 24/7/365 friendly customer service, and no contract requirements.